Monday, March 21, 2022
This day in Herstory: Dorothea Beale LL.D., born March 21, 1831 (died November 9, 1906) was a suffragist, educational reformer and author. As Principal of Cheltenham Ladies' College, she became the founder of St Hilda's College, Oxford. (more)
Lawsuits will blame NHS, warns woman who detransitioned
From The Times (UK)
By Marc Horne
March 21, 2022
A woman who had surgery so she could live as a man before changing her mind has predicted that the NHS will face legal action from others in similar situations. Sinéad Watson, 31, received a standing ovation when she spoke at a fringe meeting at the Scottish Conservative conference in Aberdeen.
Watson had a double mastectomy and hormone treatment after being referred to the Sandyford clinic, Glasgow, in 2014. She lived as a man for five years but stopped taking testosterone at the age of 27. She now says her desire to change sex stemmed from repeated incidents of sexual assault in her teens and this was never addressed by therapists.
Speaking at an event hosted by For Women Scotland and the LGB Alliance, two pressure groups that oppose reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, Watson said: “We cannot let this keep happening to our daughters. … read full article (web archive)
When a teenager says they’re transgender
From Transgender Trend (UK)
March 21, 2022
Last month we published an article written by an experienced clinical psychologist on the risks of socially transitioning young children. We are very grateful for this follow-up post on the affirmation and social transition of adolescents. When a teenager says they’re transgender, is affirmation and encouragement to socially transition the most supportive approach?
A Really Powerful Intervention
I’m surrounded with teenagers who have changed their gender. It’s everywhere, both in the young people I see at work and in young people I know socially. It has become entirely unremarkable to be told that Beth is now Seth, and to please try to get their new pronouns right as otherwise they get very upset.
Like many people, I used to see affirmation and social transition as a low-risk strategy. “It’s fully reversible”, people say, as a reason to push forwards and act quickly. Sometimes within weeks of a young person expressing distress, they’ve been transitioned at home and at school.
The more young people I meet, the less I think it’s low risk. The ‘fully reversible’ story is missing any psychological angle at all. Trying to be perceived as one sex, whilst developing the body of another, is never going to be a trivial thing to do. We can’t reverse the experiences of adolescence. … read full article
How gender self-ID is being abused
Should the serial killer Harvey Marcelin be imprisoned with women?
From UnHerd (UK)
By Julie Bindel
March 21, 2022
I assumed Harvey Marcelin was an elderly woman guilty of some sort of financial crime when I first read the charge sheet. The Department of Corrections website describes a six-foot, black female, born in 1938, charged with defrauding the government.
But Harvey is not a woman. He is a male serial killer.
The New York Times, formerly a paper of record, but more recently a censorious mouthpiece, referred to Marcelin its report as, “An 83-year-old Brooklyn woman”. In fact, almost all media reports of his latest crime – murdering and dismembering a woman he met two years ago online – refer to Marcelin as “she” and “her”.
Marcelin already has two convictions for killing women, and has served much of the past five decades in jail. He was released in 2019, but earlier this month, he was taken into custody again, after the severed remains of Susan Leydon were discovered at his home and local area. The “defrauding the government” on the charge sheet referred to his attempts to cover up his crime. … read full article
DOMINIC LAWSON: Why do police and the NHS insist that some male-bodied rapists are 'women'?
From Daily Mail (UK)
By Dominic Lawson
March 21, 2022
Like all too many of us, my attention is unfailingly grabbed by headlines revealing crimes of unusual depravity. For example, this one, from the New York Times just over a week ago: She Killed Two Women. At 83, She Is Charged With Dismembering a Third.
That's not something you read every day. And about a woman, possibly never. Or at least, I had never heard before of a female killer in the habit of dismembering her victims. … read full article
Gender Ideology Is on Life Support. My Day Watching Lia Thomas Swim
Activists have substituted knowledge with passion.
From Reality’s Last Stand (USA)
By Colin Wright
March 21, 2022
Last week I was invited to attend the NCAA Division 1 Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships at Georgia Tech, in Atlanta, GA, where I watched Lia Thomas, the male Penn swimmer who identifies as a woman, become the women’s national champion in the 500y freestyle, soundly beating two Tokyo 2020 Olympic women’s silver medalists Emma Weyant and Erica Sullivan.
I was flown out by the women’s rights organization Save Women’s Sports (SWS), founded by Beth Stelzer, to participate in their organized protest and speak at their press event in support of the sex-based rights of women and girls. But mostly I was there to watch and observe—not just the swimming competition itself, but the reaction of the audience to Thomas’ participation and the surrounding protests. I was also there to hear and learn the views and motives of the trans rights counter-protesters who quickly assembled to oppose SWS’s message and advocate for Thomas’ inclusion in the competition. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Reality’s Last Stand!)
Is the woke wall of silence finally beginning to crumble? Swimmer says Lia Thomas stole her place in NCAA finals and blasts athletics body for letting controversial transgender sportswoman compete
Virginia Tech swimmer Reka Gyorgy wrote a letter to the NCAA criticizing its rules that allow UPenn's transgender athlete Lia Thomas to compete
Gyorgy argued letting Thomas compete against women was 'disrespectful' to biologically-female swimmers
The fifth-year senior alleged that her spot in the NCAA 500 yard freestyle finals was stolen from her because Thomas was permitted to compete in the division
She has called on the sports authority to review its policies and 'open their eyes and change these rules in the future'
Gyorgy's letter was made public just days after the National Women's Law Center was blasted for dismissing critics of Thomas as 'misogynists'
From Daily Mail (UK)
By Natasha Anderson
March 20, 2022
A Virginia Tech swimmer bumped out of the NCAA finals by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas claims her spot was stolen and has publicly blasted the collegiate sports authority for letting the controversial athlete compete in the women's division.
Hungarian-born swimmer Reka Gyorgy penned a letter to the NCAA arguing that although she is convinced Thomas is 'no difference than me or any other D1 swimmer' who was striving to be the best in her field, allowing her to compete is 'disrespectful' to biologically female swimmers.
She wrote: 'I swam the 500 free at NCAA’s on March 17th 2022 where I got 17th which means I didn’t make it back to the finals and was first alternative. I’m a 5th year senior, I have been top 16 and top 8 before and I know how much of a privilege it is to make finals at a meet this big. … read full article
Transphobia, non-arguments, and the defence of sex-based rights
From On being a professional academic in an anti-intellectual age (UK)
By Jo Phoenix
March 21, 2022
On 7th March, the Forstater v CGD employment tribunal began. For those unaware, this is the next stage in Forstater’s case. In May 2021, the Employment Appeal Tribunal confirmed that Forstater’s gender critical beliefs were ‘worthy of respect in a democratic society’, meaning that they fall within the protections against belief discrimination afforded by the Equality Act 2010. Forstater is now back in the employment tribunal claiming that she lost her job at CGD for expressing her belief that men cannot become women and that sex is immutable. CGD, for their part, are claiming that they did not discriminate based on those beliefs but rather acted because of how she expressed them. CGD’s case is that they “are not obliged, on pain of legal liability, to have their mission undermined by an individual’s communications and behaviours, whether internally or on social media, which cause offence and disruption, contradict its policy of inclusion, and which are reasonably regarded as discriminatory.”
Forstater’s case is being live tweeted (@tribunaltweets). The hearing is a virtual hearing and members of the public are allowed to watch it online. I’ve been there from the beginning and where there were only around 40 people watching the first week, the second week has attracted more than 150 people each day. One of the draws? Ben Cooper QC. His cross examination of CGD witnesses has been electrifying. .… read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Jo Phoenix on Substack!)
Seb Coe warns 'the future of women's sport' is at stake in transgender athletes row
World Athletics president says 'gender cannot trump biology' after seeing American swimmer Lia Thomas win highest national college title
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Ben Bloom
March 21, 2022
Seb Coe, the World Athletics president, has warned that the “future of women’s sport” is at stake over the issue of transgender athletes and insisted that “gender cannot trump biology”.
American swimmer Lia Thomas last week controversially became the first known transgender woman to win the highest United States national college title, while New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first openly transgender woman to compete at an Olympics at last year’s Tokyo Games.
Thomas swam for the University of Pennsylvania men’s team for three seasons before starting hormone replacement therapy in 2019. She has since shattered female records, prompting outcry from swathes of the swimming community.
Asked how important the challenge of transgender women is in athletics, Coe said: “I think that the integrity of women’s sport - if we don’t get this right - and actually the future of women’s sport, is very fragile.” … read full article (web page archive)
Lord Coe: Future of women’s sport is ‘very fragile’
World Athletics president says ‘gender cannot trump biology’
From The Times (UK)
By Rebecca Myers
March 21, 2022
Lord Coe has said that the integrity and future of women’s sport is “very fragile” if federations do not get it right when creating regulations around the participation of transgender women.
The president of World Athletics said that “gender cannot trump biology” when deciding whether trans athletes should compete alongside those who were biologically female at birth.
Coe, who has been head of the sport’s federation since 2015, was speaking at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Belgrade, two days after Lia Thomas became the first known transgender athlete to win a NCAA swimming title in the United States, with victory in the women’s 500-yard freestyle. Thomas, 22, who is understood to have begun hormone replacement therapy in 2019, came fifth and eighth in her other two races.
“The integrity of women’s sport — if we don’t get this right — and, actually, the future of women’s sport, is very fragile,” Coe said.
“These are sensitive issues, they are societal issues — they go way, way beyond sport. I don’t have the luxury to get into endless discussions or the school of moral philosophy.” … read full article (share token)
Twitter suspends Babylon Bee for naming Rachel Levine ‘Man of the Year’
From New York Post (USA)
By Ariel Zilber
March 21, 2022
Twitter locked the account of a right-leaning parody site, The Babylon Bee, after it awarded Rachel Levine, the transgender Biden administration official, the title of “man of the year.”
The Babylon Bee story was a reaction to USA Today’s naming of Levine, who is US assistant secretary for health for the US Department of Health and Human Services, as one of its “women of the year” last week.
Twitter says it will restore the account, which has more than 1.3 million followers, if the Bee deletes the tweet, but CEO Seth Dillon says he has no intention of doing so.
“We’re not deleting anything,” Dillon tweeted from his personal account. “Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it.” … read full article
The Takeover of America's Legal System
The kids didn't grow out of it.
From Common Sense (USA)
By Aaron Sibarium
March 21, 2022
If you are a Common Sense reader, you are by now highly aware of the phenomenon of institutional capture. From the start, we have covered the ongoing saga of how America’s most important institutions have been transformed by an illiberal ideology—and have come to betray their own missions.
Medicine. Hollywood. Education. The reason we exist is because of the takeover of newspapers like The New York Times.
Ok, so we’ve lost a lot. A whole lot. But at least we haven’t lost the law. That’s how we comforted ourselves. The law would be the bulwark against this nonsense. The rest we could work on building anew.
But what if the country’s legal system was changing just like everything else?
Today, Aaron Sibarium, a reporter who has consistently been ahead of the pack on this beat, offers a groundbreaking piece on how the legal system in America, as one prominent liberal scholar put it, is at risk of becoming “a totalitarian nightmare.” … read full article
Media Conglomerates Marketing The Gender Identity Industry.
From The 11th Hour (USA)
By Jennifer Bilek
March 21, 2022
The propaganda, that there is a subset of humanity that is not male or female, or who believe that they are something other than male or female and should be accommodated everywhere in society for this belief, has been like a distant media drumbeat in our lives. It is always there as backdrop noise, hypnotizing us with virtue signals and repetition.
Nick Monroe, reporting in the Post Millennial recently critiqued a Sports Illustrated (SI) interview with swimmer Lia Thomas, a man swimming on a women’s elite sports team, who SI claims is really a woman. Monroe was unsurprised that Lia Thomas doubled down on his gender identity in the interview, and yet he stopped short of asking why women’s sports are being overhauled for men. He left the premise of there being a subset of humanity called “transgender” people intact.
Sports podcaster, Ross Tucker did the same in a recent, nearly wonderful Twitter thread, critiquing Lia Thomas’ NCAA Women’s Swimming Championship win Thursday. At the bottom of a nearly perfect thread, where he correctly identifies Lia Thomas as a man and the harms generated by his acceptance into women’s sports, he writes: “That said, where non-zero-sum (colliding rights) inclusion is possible, in a safe way, there should be no barrier to welcoming ‘transwomen’ into sport,” undoing all his own clarity up until that point. … read full article (and SUPPORT The 11th Hour!)
With Non-Binary Surgery, Trans has Finally Jumped the Shark
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
March 21, 2022
Thank god for non-binary and the absolute illogic and lunacy of it all. It has finally revealed what parents have known all along — this transgender youth thing is a made up, cultish quasi-religion, not an innate, immutable feeling.
If non-binary surgery is a thing (ie, in support of your non-binary gender identity, take wrong sex hormones in “regular” or “micro” doses, amputate your breasts, remove your nipples, create a “smooth” genital area — essentially de-sex your sexed body), then no longer does the narrative of "I have a female brain in a male body” or vice versa make any sense. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to PITT!)
Louisiana bill filed to prohibit conversations of sexual orientation, gender identity in classrooms
From KSLA 12 News (USA)
By Destinee Patterson
March 21, 2022
BATON ROUGE, La. (KSLA) - A northwest Louisiana state representative has proposed a bill that could ban discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in certain public school classrooms.
“No teacher, school employee, or other presenter shall cover the topics of sexual orientation or gender identity in any classroom discussion or instruction in kindergarten through grade eight,” reads HB 837, which was authored by Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Bossier.
For K-12, those school employees would not be allowed to “discuss his own sexual orientation or gender identity with students.”
Dr. Tiffany Najberg said she expected bills like HB 837 to “stay out of Louisiana,” saying it will hurt children in the long run. … read full article
Entering the parallel universe of transactivism
From Kathleen Stock (UK)
By Kathleen Stock
March 21, 2022
When people say things like “transwomen are women”, “transmen are men”, and “nonbinary people are neither women nor men”, what do they mean? In my book Material Girls I suggested that many of them are immersed in a fiction.
Getting immersed in fiction is a familiar state for most of us. Nearly all of us do it, and some of us do it several times a day. When you dip into a novel, binge on a box-set, or even just daydream furiously about succeeding romantically or seeing your enemies fail, you’re doing it. Kids get immersed in fictions when inventing elaborate situations for their toys or playing story-driven video games. Actors can get immersed when plunging into new stage roles; as can workers doing role-play at away days, David Brent-style. Historical re-enactment groups spend weekends getting immersed in collective fictions about the past. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Kathleen Stock!)
God complexes, false urgency, misleading insulin analogies, sunk costs, and pediatric endocrinology
From Writing Behavior (Canada)
By Eliza Mondegreen
March 21, 2022
I've been digging into the history of pediatric endocrinology and it's not encouraging — so many of the problems we see with medically transitioning kids have long histories: the same drugs (and the same pharma companies pushing untested off-label uses, funding medical careers, buying up patient advocacy groups, writing continuing medical education programming); the same disdain for evidence-based practice; the same wildly inapt comparisons to insulin (actually life-saving, given to patients who would die otherwise); the same pressures to act quickly before a developmental window closes, rather than wait to be sure; the same claims that treatments are safe and effective and reversible when what little evidence exists shows exactly the opposite; the same God complexes. It explains a lot of the profession's current paralysis — though more doctors are raising concerns — because to say that we might be doing wrong by gender-dysphoric kids would require the field of pediatric endocrinology to say: "Maybe it was wrong when we did these things to short kids, too” (to take just one example). … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Writing Behavior!)
New York Bill Would Allow Male Convicts to Self-ID into Women’s Prisons
The bill follows a trend of similar legislation introduced in other states including California, Washington, and Maryland.
From 4W (USA)
By Dr. Devin Jane Buckley
March 18, 2022
A New York state bill introduced into the assembly would allow biological males to be incarcerated in facilities that accord with their “self-attested gender identity” regardless of their “sex assigned at birth.” The bill follows a trend of similar legislation introduced in other states including California, Washington, and Maryland.
New York Assembly Bill 7001, which enacts the “gender identity respect, dignity and safety act,” does not require an incarcerated male to undergo surgery or be on hormone treatment to qualify for placement in a women’s prison, even if he has been convicted of rape or other acts of violence against women: “Placement shall not be conditioned upon the incarcerated individual's history of, consent to, intention to seek, or refusal to undergo any treatment or intervention regarding their sex characteristics or gender identity.” … read full article (and SUPPORT 4W!)
Why I joined feminism's undercover fightback... armed only with stickers: A secret group of women - including teachers, nurses and grannies - is resorting to guerrilla tactics to protect single-sex spaces
From Daily Mail (UK)
By Grace York
March 20, 2022
With my hair piled inside a baseball cap, dark sunglasses on and a face mask pulled up to my eyes, I was satisfied I could not be identified.
My heart was going ten to the dozen as I prepared to undertake the most daring mission yet: pursuing the illegal activity that has now become a regular part of my life.
I tried to position myself to avoid the angle of the CCTV cameras I had clocked and quickly got to work. … read full article
Hope beyond victimhood
Even if medicalised gender change was the wrong choice, lives can be rebuilt with forgiveness | Part 4
From Gender Clinic News (Australia)
By Bernard Lane
March 21, 2022
This post brings together edited extracts from the historic detransitioners’ forum hosted on 12 March 2022 by the international parents’ group Genspect and its founder Stella O’Malley, a therapist in Ireland. The presentations by detransitioners were rich and nuanced, with insights that will be new to many people, especially to those who have only heard the activist claim that detransition is vanishingly rare.
Today’s post, the last of four devoted to the webinar, deals with triggers for detransition, the ordeal of the process, the paradox of regret and acceptance, and the hopeful refusal of victim status.
The Genspect webinar was sold out, and the Twitter hashtag #DetransAwarenessDay was trending in the US, Canada and the UK. Video from the forum has been released.
Genspect, which went public in June 2021 to speak for the often silenced parents of gender-questioning young people, represents 18 parent organisations in 16 different countries.
Sinéad, 31, detransitioner, Scotland
“You're so afraid to [detransition], and it takes such a long time to be able to admit to yourself that you were wrong. Because it's embarrassing, and you feel ashamed and you feel guilty. And in many cases, you lose all the friends that you had, because all your friends are trans. And [if] you detransition, you're seen as a heretic.
“You don’t want to detransition. You don't want to be a woman with a beard or a man with breasts. You don't want people to be hostile to you and accuse you of being a bigot, while you're also dealing with transition regret, which is a living hell, especially when none of your therapists or counsellors will listen to you, especially when you do actually find someone who isn't completely against detransition and their response is, maybe you’re gender fluid, maybe you’re non-binary.
“Detransition isn't fun. I completely understand why so many people lost in transition say, it took me a year, two years, five years — because why the hell would you want to do it sooner?” … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Gender Clinic News!)